Roger Fingas
Two firms, Interflex and Samsung Electro-Mechanics, are reportedly boosting their spending on production of flexible printed circuit boards (FPCBs) specifically for Apple's upcoming iPhones, including the "iPhone 8," which should be the first iPhone with an OLED screen.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics is spending $88 million on expanding its plant in Vietnam, while Inteflex is planning to make a similar investment of its own, The Korea Herald said on Monday, quoting another Korean publication, The Bell. Apart from Samsung and Interflex, Apple is expected to source FPCBs from a third firm — BH — which also recently grew production in Vietnam.
Orders for Samsung and Interflex will allegedly be decided when production starts in April or May.
About 60 million OLED-equipped iPhones should be produced this year, representing 40 percent of new devices, the Herald said. Adoption is forecast to double in 2018, and by 2019, Apple is predicted to use OLED in all its new models.
The basis for the latter claim is unknown, but in recent years Apple has taken a policy of gradually migrating high-end features to cheaper models. The 4.7-inch iPhone 7, for instance, now includes optical image stabilization, something that was previously reserved for the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus.
Apple is expected to ship three new iPhones this fall, including the "iPhone 8," and two "7s" models using 4.7- and 5.5-inch LCDs like the iPhone 7. All three are expected to offer wireless charging, as well as faster wired charging via Lightning.
The "iPhone 8" will likely use a 5.8-inch OLED display, with about 0.7 inches of that being dedicated to virtual buttons replacing a physical one. It may also offer 3D facial recognition, iris scanning, and/or a new form of fingerprint sensor.
Christine McKee
Charles Martin
Amber Neely
Sponsored Content
7 Comments
I’ve always wondered what keeps Samsung from sharing design and manufacturing data of the iPhone with its mobile development group? Integrity? Ethics? The law? Samsung says it doesn’t/can’t happen but Samsung’s chief executive has been arrested for bribery so I’m not certain there’s any integrity to be had. The Galaxy S8 is touted as beating the iPhone 8 (?) to market and it looks very much like the rumors about the iPhone 8. When the iPhone 8 is released the trolls here will say it copied the S8, right? But is the other way around?
Yeah, Samsung have got the plans to the iPhone 8, hence why the S8 looks how it does. However, the design and the screen only give away a bit of the phone.
They still can't copy iOS and we all remember their surprise when the iPhone suddenly went 64bit even though Samsung made the chips.
They can copy the design all day long but if you don't have the tech, you can't totally copy something.
How long can Apple sustain using its primary competitor as its primary supplier? Either they have to build their own components or find a supplier who's not in the phone business. Otherwise, they'll just keep chasing their own tail innovatively. They've given the KGB a seat on the National Security Council.
Seriously, you guys are amazing. The iPhone 8 will contain design features that A) Samsung has had in their phones for years and B) Apple dismissed and derided as "bad design" in the past. Yet you claim: "When the iPhone 8 is released the trolls here will say it copied the S8, right? But is the other way around?" "Yeah, Samsung have got the plans to the iPhone 8, hence why the S8 looks how it does." Samsung has had curved OLED screens since 2013 (the Galaxy Round). Samsung has sold very large phones since that time also (the Galaxy Mega). Wireless charging? Again, since 2013. Even the no-bezel design ... even though Samsung has not had devices like this themselves, several Android OEMs have dating back to the Sharp Aquos Crystal in 2014 (when Samsung released the Galaxy Note Edge). The same thing with the biometrics in the Galaxy S8 ... ZTE launched the first eye scanner in a phone in 2014 and Samsung had them in the ill-fated Note 7. Look folks. Apple has been cribbing ideas from the Android sphere ever since the very early days of "nuclear war." The only thing that has changed is Apple's doing so much faster and more comprehensively than prior. Why? My guess is that the ending of the failed litigation-as-PR strategy allowed them to be far more open about coming out with what is essentially going to be an iPhone Galaxy than in the past. Another possibility is that in the absence of actual innovation, some combination of iteration and emulation is all there is left. This is the real issue. We know that Samsung is incapable of any true innovation. (Either that, or any good and truly new ideas that Samsung has gets quashed by their management and culture ... and I have read this about Samsung. Every year, rumors surface about fantastic new and completely technologically feasible ideas for the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note or leaked, only for Samsung to quash it all.) The problem is that Apple hasn't come out with anything truly new, innovative or bold in years ... basically since TouchID and the 64 bit Ax chip. Everything since then has been something that was first introduced in a Samsung or other Android device years prior, to the point where lately "iPhone Galaxy" jokes have become somewhat commonplace. The iPhone 8 far more resembling some hybrid of the Galaxy Note 7 and the Galaxy S8 than it does the iPhone 6 will increase the frequency and intensity of "iPhone Galaxy" chatter, and accusing Samsung of stealing from Apple ideas that they patented and put in their own products years ago won't change the fact that Apple is now reduced to joining Samsung and everyone else in the iteration/emulation game because of their own lack of truly new ideas.